‘I am not crying,’ was the answer, in a voice made steady by pride.
‘Don’t be angry with me, please. Oh! Ombra, I am so sorry! Tell me what it is!’ cried wistful Kate.
‘It is temper,’ cried Ombra, after a pause, with a sudden outburst of sobs. ‘There, that is all; now leave me to myself, after you have made me confess. It is temper, temper, temper—nothing! I thought I had not any, but I have the temper of a fiend, and I am trying to struggle against it. Oh! for heaven’s sake, let me alone!’
Kate took away her arm, and withdrew herself humbly, with a grieved and wondering pain in her heart. Ombra with the temper of a fiend! Ombra repulsing her, turning away from her, rejecting her sympathy! She crept to her little white bedroom, all silent, and frightened in her surprise, not knowing what to think. Was it a mere caprice—a cloud that would be over to-morrow?—was it only the result of illness and weariness? or had some sudden curtain been drawn aside, opening to her a new mystery, an unsuspected darkness in this sweet life?
CHAPTER XXVII.
Long after Kate’s little bedchamber had fallen into darkness, the light still twinkled in the windows of the Cottage drawing-room. The lamp was still alight at midnight, and Ombra and her mother sat together, with the marks of tears on their cheeks, still talking, discussing, going over their difficulties.
‘I could bear him to go away,’ Ombra had said, in her passion; ‘I could bear never to see him again. Sometimes I think I should be glad. Oh! I am ashamed—ashamed to the bottom of my heart to care for one who perhaps cares no longer for me! if he would only go away; or if I could run away, and never more see him again! It is not that, mamma—it is not that. It is my own fault that I am unhappy. After what he said to me, to see him with—her! Yes, though I should die with shame, I will tell you the truth. He comes and looks at me as if I were a naughty child, and then he goes and smiles and talks to her—after all he said. Oh! it is temper, mamma, vile temper and jealousy, and I don’t know what! I hate her then, and him; and I detest myself. I could kill myself, so much am I ashamed!’
‘Ombra! Ombra! my darling, don’t speak so!—it is so unlike you!’
‘Yes,’ she said, with a certain scorn, ‘it is so unlike me that I was appalled at myself when I found it out. But what do you know about me, mother? How can you tell I might not be capable of anything that is bad, if I were only tempted, as well as this?’
‘My darling! my darling!’ said the mother, in her consternation, not knowing what to say.